For nearly a month and a half, rbgoulet1 found a way to defy the odds and successfully pick a player who came through with at least one hit. However, his march to BTS immortality met its end with Derek Jeter’s grounder to Aaron Hill in the eighth inning of Tuesday’s game betweeen the Yankees and Blue Jays in Toronto.

The groundout capped a 0-for-4 performance for the Yankees captain and snapped rbgoulet1’s run at 42 games. rbgoulet1 finished three games shy of the BTS high mark of the season and seven-games shy of the all-time mark.

So as they say, the BTS leader is dead — long live the BTS leader! eggman3131 took over the top spot at 34 games thanks to a 3-for-5 performance from Joe Mauer. hammanm got just enough from Jacoby Ellsbury (1-for-6) to move up to 29 games, and samolina55 went with Ichiro Suzuki (2-for-5) to wind up in third place, at 28 games.

17 Comments

momfannie, I sympathize with you on how much it sucks to pick a guy that goes 0-1, whether it be from getting ejected, hurt or coming into pinch hit. To end a 35 game streak that way would definitely be hard to swallow. With that said, a 5 inning rule would take away from the authenticity of the game. What if your player got a hit but didnt play 5 innings, would that count?

I like the rules the way they are and I picked Damon last night against Halladay and he owns Halladay in his career. He continued that last night and I may be at 3 right now but I have a couple of rules I’m following to try to get to at least 20 since I have never made it at least that far yet.

momfannie – You took a tough loss when Joey “The Black Cat” Votto was tossed from that game after going 0 – 1.
Major league rules need to be followed.
The computer program that runs this game would be taxed beyond belief trying to keep up with how many innings guys played each game. e.g. Ichirio goes 3 -3 and Seattle is leading the Yankees 14 – 1 in the 3rd inning. Seattle mangager takes Ichiro out of the game to rest him. Do his hits now not count? This is a game of chance and “breaks of the game” cut both ways.
My dream secnario: My streak is at 56 games and I choose
Albert Pujols for game 57. Pujols twists his ankle before the game and is not in the line up. With two outs in the 9th he limps to the plate to pinch hit and hits a grand slam home run to win the game and I get the $1M.
vinman28 – Glad you stuck with Damon yesterday. I wish you had mention Damon owning Halliday when you asked for help with a pick. Chase Utley went 0 – 4 and my streak is gone.
dragbunt

I know dragbunt but I knew that Jeter was a bad pick since he was hitting .182 against Halladay and I was shocked when I saw the leader had him yesterday. At least we all still have something to play for.

momfannie, changing the rules, in my opinion, would just degrade the challenge, especially a rule that heavily favors misfortune. If that rule was in play, the contest may have already been won. How many people loose a streak because their pick got 2 or less official at bats (ABs)? My guess is it is very high. Getting 1 at bat is just horrible luck, it has happened to a fair amount of streakers-to-be. When it happens to you, you are almost praying for a walk or even hit by pitch. When it happens to the leaders, you are praying the pitcher throws strikes. Adds some excitement at that moment and water-cooler chats the next day.
Well, Dimaggio himself continued his streak with 3 games of only 2-ABs and 11 games of 3-ABs. Never had a 1-AB game, which is probably why his streak may never be broken. The streak: http://www.sportingnews.com/archives/dimaggio/streakstats.html

^^ Oh, and here’s the flip side that does favor misfortune: extra innings. How many streakers continued their streak after the player got 4 or more ABs during the 1st nine innings and didn’t get a hit; then, extra innings luck and the streak continued. Just happened with Ellsbury & Victorino yesterday.

vinman – I was also very surprised that the Jeter was chosen the streak leader. Your “theory” on choosing a strong hitter v. a strong pitcher that the hitter “owns” is good information – I usually shy away from these matchups – but Johnny Damon’s performance v. Halliday shows the other side of the coin in these situations.
Question? – If a sac fly is not recorded as a time at bat why does it could against us in the beat the streak game? e.g. If Alfonso Soriano walked, was hit by a pitch and had a sac fly in a game, he would not have an official at bat in the game 0 – 0 — but — your hitting streak would end because a sac fly counts against you. any thoughts here?
Is there a web site that gives you info on how a hitter does vs. lefty and righty pitchers?
dragbunt

I mean if I followed that info dragbunt than I would of probably had it won already. I haven’t even gotten to 14 yet because I always make bad picks on bad days and the day I don’t pick that person is when they get a hit. There is a website and it’s the MLB site. I found it today and I find it’s very useful info.

Regarding sac flies/hits…
“As addressed within Rule 10.09(e) of the Official Baseball Rules, a sacrifice fly is not counted as a turn at bat for the batter, though the batter is credited with a run batted in.

The purpose of not counting a sacrifice fly as an at bat is to avoid penalizing hitters for a successful tactical maneuver. The sacrifice fly is one of two instances in baseball where a batter is not charged with a time at bat after putting a ball in play; the other is the sacrifice hit. However, a sacrifice fly still reduces a player’s on base percentage, and a player on a hitting streak will have the hit streak end if he has no official at-bats but he has a sacrifice fly.”

lavolpevb – Thanks for the info on the sac fly. If the sac fly can end a MLB hitting streak – it also must end the “Beat the Streak” hitting streak. I get it now!
Also found that if you do a google search with player name and the words quick splits after the player name you get to the site with lefty/righty hitters v. pitchers stats.
Packed with good info – e.g. Ichirio hitting .458 in day games-amazing stat.
vinman – Keep the updates coming. My longest streak is 14 games. I like Ichirio on Thursday.
dragbunt

I wanted to get your thoughts on something else and that is the double header rule. I feel that it’s too hard of a rule. I understand you need at least one hit in each game but do you feel they should give you credit for two games instead of one if the guy you choose gets a hit in both games. I think that they should give you credit for two wins in Survivor if a team wins both games since they get credit for both wins in the standings. You understand what I’m saying and dragbunt I had Cano today and he went 2-4 so far.

You can go to any team site, available at the upper left-hand corner of MLB.COM’s site. Click on stats, then sortable player stats and it’s all right there ? splits, including lefty-righty numbers and day and night (Ichiro on day games is as sure a pick as there is, even if Halladay is pitching), home and road, and game-by-game, useful for seeing when guys are in slumps and particularly helpful with pitcher analysis. Here’s another website that will help let you know who’s hot. I used to it to pick the Giants’ Eugenio Velez the last two days: http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/CurStreak.py.

vinman – You are correct on the doubleheader rule. 2 games means two games. We should get a two game advance on our streaks. I know someone out there is going to tell us that the great Dimaggio played in X number of double headers during his streak and got hits in both games. The important thing now is that we read the rules and know to stay away from double headers.
pperkins – Thanks for the tip on searching the team sites for lefty/right info.
Good luck on Thursday!
dragbunt

They should let you pick up to 5 minutes before the 2nd game in the doubleheader, either the same player, a new player in that 2nd game, or a no pick for the 2nd game and still keep your streak intact.

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